LAND OF MAG: GAME

You're in the basement of the dilapidated High Priest's palace. Since Mag vanished and all the old priests died, it's been just a grand abandoned building with a partially-collapsed foyer floor. But you've been told there's something special behind the pile of rubble that you're trying to clear, down here in the basement.

Common practices include cultivation of immense village flower gardens; making idols of Mag; and the grim and gleeful fifths.

The gleeful fifth, or new moon feast, is a gathering and redistribution of local resources. Those who come with much depart with less, those who come with little leave with more. Gleeful fifths displease the kings and queen, who would like to levy taxes to fund the battles in Valley-of-Shields, as well as public roads and palace improvements. Shifting ownership of property makes it difficult for knights to identify who can pay taxes. This problem has been solved by authorizing knights to collect annual tithes from whole villages, at the thirteenth fifth of the year (mid-winter).

The grim fifth is the custom that rather than burying corpses, they are offered to trolls by trollbaiters.

The fields around Yogog are farmed with hoes and adzes, and yield squash, beans, and corn. Ostrich meat is plentiful.

Dirty and disrespected, the city of smelters turns coal and ore into steel that equips daily life and battle's strife. Wagons and boats carry gleaming ingots to Gogog (only some have the special mark that means they're quality, and those are guarded close), and return with northern coal that fuels the smelters. King Yogog is a hereditary member of the Smelters and Forgers - a mere puppet of the senior members, who regulate all parts of life that affect industrial production. Outside the interests of the steelmills, Yogog has little law.

A Spearmaster is a mystic warrior and artisan who has trained in every aspect of their weapon — from selecting and carving the haftwood, to smelting and forging the head, to drilling in proper use of the finished tool. Many also hear the Voice whispering spells to them. Not all choose to listen, because the Voice can whisper plenty of crazy nonsense; and if a spell gets stuck in your head, it's hard to get out.

Born among the red glow of the smelters, Torrhen Thynes grew up in the soot-streaked streets of Yogog, where steel was more valuable than law. His father was a forgehand, his mother a tally-keeper for the Smelters and Forgers, but Torrhen wouldn't follow either path. From the time his father bought him his first tiny, childish training spear, Torrhen knew his calling.

From an early age, he carved crude hafts from scrap wood and begged broken heads from smiths’ refuse piles. When he was old enough, he sought training in the ancient ways of the Spearmasters, learning to shape the wood, forge the steel, and wield the finished weapon with precision and grace. In time, he became a journeyman, his craft earning him respect even among the most jaded.

But then came the whispers.

The Voice spoke to him in the hiss of quenching steel, in the crackling of forge-flames, in the rasp of whetstones on iron. It whispered secrets of power—spells of reach and ruin, of warding and war. But Torrhen was (in his mind) an honorable and civic-conscious individual; he had no use for mad power-grabs or forbidden knowledge.

So for years he ignored the Voice, only telling a select few that he even heard it. Then he met a fellow Spearmaster named Leila Mott, a spirited and tough woman, and the Voice was silenced completely. Their romance was worthy of song, but alas, it was all too brief; Leila was assigned to put down a worker uprising, but she and her team underestimated the "rabble." They were torn apart by the workers, the pieces of their corpses thrown into the forges.

The second Torrhen learned of her death, the Voice returned in earnest.

With his parents also dead (father from a forge accident, mother from a wasting disease), and being an only child, Torrhen had no confidants left to discuss the Voice. Friends? The few he had were deemed untrustworthy.

For six months, he tried to suppress those whispers, but his increasingly tedious duties, the unchanging power structure of Yogog, and the lack of emotional support broke him. After going on a days-long drinking spree, blowing all his silver on whores, and fighting two guards (he doesn't think he killed them, but he's not certain), Torrhen left Yogog, vowing never to return until he acquired enough power to...well, he's not certain. He wants power. He can decide what to do with it later.

And so he finds himself in this basement in a faraway land, looking for anything that'll aid him in his ill-defined quest.

Clearing the rubble reveals a sturdy iron door set in the stone block wall of the basement.

WITH A MIGHTY HEAVE, Dyeusz opens the heavy door. It groans loudly on its hinges.

There is a faint bad smell from the dark opening.

The door leads into a passage about five feet wide and seven feet high; unless any of you are unusually tall, you have head room. The passage has stone block walls and a stone floor, like the basement you're leaving.

How do you proceed?

Pushing forward to the limits of Urukh's torchlight, Dyeusz enters a small circular room with another exit in the righthand wall. The entire floor of the room seems to be covered with carvings. In the very dim light, Dyeusz cannot discern details. The room is eerily silent and feels very peaceful, calm, and safe.

The carvings are intricate and puzzle you greatly. The air in this room is still and the bad odor that you earlier noted is not present; instead there is a "clean" smell here.

The opening in the right wall is about eight feet high and wide. It looks like the opening is at the corner or bend of a passage that leads away to left and right.

What do you do?

You can go RIGHT or LEFT from the opening in the wall. How do you decide?

As you proceed to the left the floor seems to slope slightly downward. You smell the bad smell again. Then your light shows two figures.

The two figures lurch backward and kind of scramble away from you in desperate fashion, departing along the passage that continues on into darkness.

The passage soon forks. Left? or Right? From the left comes a barely perceptible flow of cool, slightly moist and definitely foul-smelling air. From the right you hear a faint indistinct noise.

Nothing moves behind you. You come soon to the top of a wide flight of stairs that spiral down clockwise into the dark. Curiously, you descend to a dark landing that smells of filth. The stairs continue down into darkness. Also, passages with arched stone block ceilings and paved stone floors run straight into darkness, left and right.

Left: the passage runs straight for a while. Then torchlight shows the edge of a chamber at the end. The air is still, the place is silent except for your own footfalls and breathing. You pause to listen, then continue into the chamber.

The room is domed, a half-sphere with stone block walls curving up to form the ceiling. There is another opening in the right hand wall. It is dark, but torchlight dimly shows a passage similar to the one you entered by.

Sprawled in the center of the floor is a dessicated corpse and around the corpse are coins ...

The corpse lies chest-down, face-up so it's pretty obvious that death arrived by a broken neck. A lumpy backpack is on the corpse's back and its from there that the coins have spilled. Also by the corpse's hand is the hilt of an old sword, in a style about a hundred years outdated. It seems to be wearing leather armor.

"Broken neck" he says to Dyeuz.

Feeling a bit safer, Urukh proceeds on removing the backpack from the dead man to closely inspect its content.

The backpack contains:
• a folding razor
• a very dry disc of soap
• a shaving brush
• a rolled-up watercolor portrait of a happy family in traditional caftans, standing on the famous Parrot Bridge in Magog (the city above you)
• a spare set of traveling clothes
• some disgustingly moldy jerky

Gathering coins.

Opening in right wall, or retreat to stairs. Those are the obvious exits.

That rightward corridor runs straight into darkness. As you go along the ceiling gets lower and the walls get narrower and the floor seems to upslope. When the passage has gotten quite cramped your light shows a room at the end. A little hunched over because of the uncomfortably low arched ceiling, you emerge into another room. The room is wide as your light can show, the base of the far wall is just seen. The room is square. Its walls and corners arch upward. In the middle is a knee high round wall that contains a shimmering surface. Water? There is an opening in the right wall and another in the far wall.

"Is there an end to this place ?"

Getting closer to the strange surface he examine it for a moment making sure not to touch it.

The surface is horizontal like water within the circular retaining wall. It does not smell like water exactly. It smells like rain after a lightning strike.

The surface shows vague reflections of shapes and figures not in this bare room. The perspective of the reflections is weird and shifting.

In the moments while you gaze on the shimmering pool a thought disquiets both of you: the shambling dead you saw, are they what always happens to a corpse left uneaten by trolls? What of the corpse in the previous room?

Back to the stairs: UP to the exit, or DOWN to the depths?

More urgently, there are three of the Shambling Dead here, just ascending from the depths. Maybe two are the same ones that Urukh frightened before? Do you want to try scaring them off again?

Urukh savagely and repeatedly strikes with his dagger at one of the shambling dead that is trying to pull down Dyeusz. He drives the horrific, stinking creature away from his companion. Meanwhile another of the Uneaten tries to strangle Urukh! He fends it off without harm.

Dyeusz whirls the sledge in a mighty strike that spatters apart one of the shambling dead.

Two remain, but one is so enfeebled by Urukh's previous assault that it has withdrawn from combat and is retreating down the stairs. The other fearlessly attacks: Dyeusz.

Urukh is not on solid footing as he turns toward the remaining Uneaten, so his dagger strike is feebler than his previous effort. Yet it has some impact; the abomination is distracted from Dyeusz. Dyeusz now gets a free attack on it.

Two Uneaten are vanquished, demolished, laid low. The third has snuck back down the stairs. It left bits behind.

The torch, cast aside in battle, flickers. Do you take it up to the basement, or down to the depths?

The stairs spiral down clockwise for seems like half a turn, then reverse to descend counterclockwise, ending with the lowest step covered by water.

The torchlight shows a flooded room, the torchlight reflecting off the water that covers the floor and glowing on a ceiling about four feet above the water. Square-linteled doorways are to the left and straight ahead from the stairs.

Do you test the waters?

There is in fact a small chunk of stone fallen from the ceiling, sitting on a step above the water. It is less than fist-sized and easy to pick up. Dyeusz tosses it into the water. It splashes. A bare moment later there is a very muted "thunk." It seems the water is shallow, maybe knee-deep to waist-deep.

Ripples fade. The air is still and damp. A droplet of water that had splashed to the ceiling drips back down.

left, or straight across?

Splashing through thigh deep water, the ceiling barely a cubit above your heads, you exit through the squarish doorway into a squarish passage with an upward floor. The passage leads up out of the water and curves to the right. The ceiling remains low.

You come to a point where another passage meets the one you're in, the two passages joining in an arrowhead shape. Facing the point of the arrow, you confront a rusty door. It is closed. The other passage goes kind of backward and left from here.

What do you?

@GeneralET what does Urukh do?

The dry floor passage curves slowly then abruptly to the right, opening into a triangular room where you stand at one of the triangle points. There are doorways at the other two points of the room. In the center of the room, a stone ring about two feet across and a few inches thick hangs in the air. The ring is slowly spinning around its vertical axis. You can see through the large hole in its center.

Urukh has heard of this thing! It is an "unyielding ring". Those who are sufficiently gifted can grasp it and move it around, but when they release it, it will stay stuck wherever they leave it no matter how much load is put on it. These devices once were used in mining and construction, but all had been thought lost. Here is a priceless example.

You go left, along a dry passage with a low-ceiling and trapezoidal cross section, until you enter a square room. At the middle of the room is a shimmering pool … but just as you start to consider its resemblance to the shimmering pool in a previous room, you feel a surge of pressure and nausea wash over you.

As the ill feeling passes, you notice another exit from the room, at the far side of the circular pool in the middle.

You cross the room, your torch flickers as you pass into the trapezoidal passage beyond.

The passage seems to curve gradually to the right, then comes to a four-way cross. There is nothing particular to indicate which option is better. Do you go left? Straight? Right?

The passage continues past the crossing, possibly sloping downward, curving to the right. It ends abruptly in a small cubic room (about eight feet on a side) with an alcove at the far wall. There is another opening to the left hand leading out of the room. In the alcove is what looks like a full-face mask, the kind that might be worn to a costume party. In the torchlight the mask has a shadowy pale appearance, like the face of the moon through clouds.

The mask, like the engravings at the entrance, has protective properties. It deters the Uneaten from bothering its wearer. It may even grant its wearer a power of command on the Uneaten. Experimentation would be needed.

The mask is bone. Cut from the front of a skull, and wax-polished to a lunar sheen.

The mask seems creepy, but not cursed.

The leftward passage curves gradually to the left. It's hard to tell if you're going downward or upward as the ceiling height varies from close-to-you-head up toward cavernous and then back down. After a while you come to a crossing. Do you go left, straight, or right?

You cross the intersection and proceed, your torch flame steady as you walk.

The passage is tall and broad, stone blocks line the walls and floor and the ceiling is arched stone blocks.

Ahead of you, the passage opens into a big room. As you step into the room, you hear a sudden noise of snarling from each side!

Two gargoyles leap at you!

Urukh's dagger scrapes sparks on the gargoyle battling Dyeusz!

The other gargoyle takes advantage of Urukh's distraction and swipes a heavy paw …

One slightly cracked gargoyle and one hale and fierce gargoyle crouch, ready to leap at you again. Do you take the attack to one of them, or wait for their charge?

The slightly cracked gargoyle bursts noisily into shards of rocky flesh that leap into the air, skitter across the floor, and bounce off the hale gargoyle.

The hale gargoyle rallies and batters at Dyeusz!

Surprisingly, Urukh's dagger actually gouges a chunk out of the gargoyle's stony skin. The strange beast snarls and recoils, presenting its back to Dyeusz, who is winding up for another blow …

Great stony chunks of gargoyle splinter and fly in the air. The strange beast cowers away from Dyeusz and Urukh, scraping the floor as it retreats toward a staircase of wide steps leading down.

You notice now that you're not being ambushed, there is another exit from the room on this level, to the right.

The broken-off leg of the gargoyle is a weird texture, not quite rigid but stiff and very heavy. Dyeusz hefts it and ponders.

As Dyeusz works the "stone" and Urukh watches anxiously, time passes and a second torch must be lit from the first, which flickers out. At about that time, intent on the stone and the light, you are heedless of the surrounds. Then your attentions are drawn to a new entrant, who utters a tooth-aching whine.

A spectre floats at the top of the stairs before you, followed by five shambling dead. They float and shamble slowly toward you. Dyeusz' gargoyle club is about ready to be used, but will it or the sledge strike true against a vaporous foe?

Dyeusz steps toward the shambling dead, but the spectre intervenes! A chill breeze seems to blow through Dyeusz bones …

Dyeuz cringes away from the chill touch of the spectre, which strikes a (metaphorical) dagger of ice through his chest.Simultaneously, one of the shambling dead fumbles with something dangling around its neck. (Urukh knows it is a pendant that seems to control the spectre — does he inform Dyeusz?)

Dyeusz mightly blow lays low the shambler that bears the pendant, and also … smashes the pendant! Shards of glass or gemstone tinkle across the stone floor as the spectre utters a mournful moan and dissipates.

The torch flickers low. It will die soon.

The four remaining shamblers sway, motionless, under thrall of Urukh's mask.

You can return where you came, or go to the right, or go down the steps.

Which way do you go to get back to the unyielding ring?

You head back to the four way intersection and notice that there are X's on all four passageways.

Following Dyeusz directions brings you first to the corner alcove where you found the bone mask, then back to the other angle of the four-way crossing, then to the room with the shimmering pool …

Again the feeling of nausea and a strange burning sensation in your eyes and nostrils. You pass the pool without incident and continue into the room with the unyielding ring.

So you rest …

Does one of you (or both of you) try now to move the unyielding ring?

With both of you gripping the ring one handed, your brows wrinkled with mental effort ... You get it to move! Where do you go from here?

"Through the water and upstairs I say."

Agreed

You pass the closed door on your left (you hear faint sounds of motion beyond it) … splash through the water … up the stairs … and up again …

As you ascend the second flight of stairs, still gripping the Unyielding Ring, you hear a rhythmic chanting echoing above you.

It sounds like a rite of Mag.

Now you hear footsteps treading toward the stairs.

A procession of chanting people begin to descend the stairs toward you. There are five … six of them. All wear robes similar to Urukh's but without the fancy sigils of a Mag-priest. They carry no torches. Their eye sockets are empty. They are chanting an invocation of vanished Mag.

The leader senses your presence and stops a couple steps above Urukh. "What do you do in this sacred place?" she demands. Her shrill voice echoes in the stairwell.

An odor wafts down the steps. It is very old and stale. Flesh so withered that it barely smells of decay. Yet it still does.

The chanting continues. "What do you do here?" the leader demands a second time.